


The End of the Line

by Goldy



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elena fights off a mental breakdown; Bonnie and Damon clash over the best way to rescue Stefan. Post-S2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End of the Line

Elena can’t remember how she got back to the mansion. But Caroline is pushing a hot mug of tea in her hands and Bonnie wraps a blanket around her shoulders, mouthing, _“It’s going to be okay.”_

Elena doesn’t react to either of them. Both of their faces are pinched and tired and a part of her wants to reassure them, wants to be the one smiling and telling them it’s okay—after all, that’s her job, isn’t it? Protect the ones you love. Elena Gilbert: raison d’être.

But her mouth is dry and the words don’t come.

It had been the blood bags at Alaric’s that did it. Seeing them strewn across the floor, it didn’t take them long to figure out what had happened to Stefan.

The enormity of it all rushed up and hit her then—Jenna and John and Isobel and mom and dad. They were all gone and they all had had exactly one thing in common:

Parent to Elena Gilbert.

She sat down, in the middle of Alaric’s apartment, hands clenching around the depleted blood bags. She closed her eyes, breathed in and out, listened to her heart thump. She thought of how she clung to Stefan the night before Jenna’s funeral, the way she sobbed against his neck and he’d held her and shushed her and then held her some more.

And it’s selfish of her—so selfish of her—but she’s almost angriest at him for not being here now, not being here to hold on to her as she struggles to deal with _this_ \--his joining up with Klaus, his leaving town.

Damon had to half carry her back to the mansion where he assembled the rest of the team with such cool and calm efficiency that Elena is almost grateful for his obsessive need to control everything and everyone around him. He’s clearly assessed that she’s not up to the task of leading the Let’s Rescue Stefan mission—and she thinks he might be right.

She could just let him handle it, she knows. She could let Damon go off to save his baby brother and stay behind. She could make sure Jeremy goes to school and has some semblance of normality. They both know he wouldn’t stop until he found Stefan and Klaus—for her sake, for his sake, and for Stefan.

With one last gentle hand on her shoulder, Bonnie and Caroline move away from her, each of them taking a seat in the foyer. Elena wraps the blanket more securely around her shoulders, eyes ticking over their faces in turn—Damon, pacing by the fireplace, Bonnie, face hard and determine, Caroline, worried but trying to hide it, and Alaric, gaze unsteady and far away.

Caroline starts first. “Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks,” she says. “I mean, he’s been drinking Elena’s blood all year, hasn’t he? Maybe he’s just pretending.” Off all their looks, she hastily adds, “You know, to keep us all safe. To keep Elena safe.”

It sounds plausible enough for Stefan that they can’t quite discount the possibility. Still, Elena knows that it isn’t true. If it was, Stefan would have found some way to get in touch—to let her know what he’s planning.

And he hasn’t.

Alaric clears his throat. “There was an animal attack this evening outside of Atlanta. Five bodies were mauled.”

Elena’s fingers clench around her tea.

“Well...” Caroline starts, “we don’t know for sure that was Stefan, do we?”

“I think that we do,” says Bonnie quietly and Caroline looks away. Bonnie sighs. “Look, I don’t know how badly the blood affected Stefan, but I _do_ know what he was like last time this happened. And now he’s teamed up with Klaus...”

“So we get him back,” says Damon. “If you hadn’t noticed, that’s what this little meeting is all about.”

“Okay so we get him back,” says Bonnie. “How do we do that, exactly? He’s with Klaus—who, thanks to the sacrifice ritual, is now part werewolf in addition to being the world’s oldest vampire. And even if we do find some way to rescue him, who knows what kind of shape he’ll be in. Do we lock him in the basement and put him through detox? We’re not talking about someone with a drug addiction, we’re talking about someone who’s now Klaus’s main henchman.”

Caroline bites her lip. “You’re talking like we should just leave him.”

Bonnie chances a quick look at Elena and then hurriedly glances away, staring down at her hands. “Of course I’m not saying that,” she says, but in a voice that intimates she had been thinking exactly that. “I just... I’m not sure we know what we’re dealing with. A few hours ago we thought we only had Klaus to worry about. But now with Stefan in the mix....”

“Right,” says Damon. “So we take him _out_ of the mix. Come on, Bonnie. You really think that Stefan’s greatest wish is to be by Klaus’s side forever?”

“No, I’m not saying that.” There’s a long pause. “But maybe we’d be doing him a favour if we—”

Damon fixes Bonnie with a steely glare. “That is not an option.” He clenches his jaw and then forces a smile. “So Stefan might have slaughtered a village or two back in his heyday. Big deal. What vampire hasn’t gone on the odd genocidal bender?”

Caroline raises her hand. “Um... I haven’t.”

“Not helping,” says Damon. “Look the point is, he got past that, he can get past this too. He just needs.... a little help.”

Alaric adds, “We also have to consider that Klaus might be compelling him. Stefan might not even be in control of his own actions.”

A blanket of silence follows his words and Elena’s insides seem to freeze.

The idea is horrifying. She thinks about Isobel ripping off her necklace and letting the sun burn her after nothing more than an _I’m so sorry, Elena_. She pictures Stefan being forced to endure months, years, maybe decades of Klaus’s control. And at the end of all that, after finally being released, wouldn’t he make the same choice to end it all?

Her stomach bottoms out and suddenly she’s shaking, the tea sloshing against the sides of the mug and spilling on her wrists.

No, she’s better than this. Stronger than this. Stefan needs her right now, and she needs him. She needs to know there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.

Still shaking, she pushes herself to her feet, the blanket sliding down her shoulders. The room immediately hushes as she stands.

“I don’t care what he’s done,” she says, and in that moment in time she means it (it’s easy when all she has is a media report and vague stories of his past). “This isn’t him. And if there’s even a chance that we can get him back then I need to try.” She pauses and there’s a lump in her throat when she continues, “Next month it will be the one year anniversary of my parents’ death. And I want Stefan to be here with me.”

There’s a heavy silence in the room as they all stare back at her. Elena carefully and steadily sets the mug of tea down on the coffee table. Then she takes the blanket and tucks it up behind her on the couch.

“So this is how it will go down. I’m going to go pack a bag and in a half hour from now, Damon and I are going out that door, and we are going to find Stefan. I’ll need the rest of you here to keep up with the news and point us in the right direction.” Elena turns to Alaric. “Look after Jeremy? I hate leaving him so soon after Jenna, but....”

“Consider it done,” says Alaric. “He’ll understand.”

But Bonnie, Caroline, and Damon are all staring at her as if she’s lost it.

“Elena,” Bonnie begins, “are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” Elena answers honestly. She swallows. “But I am not going to lose anyone else—I will not let this happen. Not to Stefan.”

 _Especially not to Stefan_ , she thinks silently but doesn’t add.

They’re all still staring at her, so she says with finality, “I’m going to pack.”

Mind made up, she heads straight to Stefan’s bedroom. Most of her stuff is still in her bedroom at home, but she suspects there will be enough of her things in Stefan’s bedroom to last at least a couple of weeks. She had been in the process of moving in, after all. She bites down a hysterical laugh—of all the things she had to worry about, her boyfriend going on a blood bender and joining up with Klaus would only be in the most absurd of her nightmares.

Once there, she pulls opens drawers and stuffs her things into a suitcase on autopilot. She barely even looks at what she’s packing—all her instincts are screaming at her to get moving, that every _second_ they wait is a second that Stefan gets further away from her.

She hears movement in the doorway and then, “Elena.”

Elena doesn’t look up from what she’s doing. “I don’t want to hear it, Bonnie. I’ve made up my mind.”

“I know you think that, but...” Elena looks up sharply from her packing and Bonnie has the sense to look guilty. “I know that,” she clarifies firmly. “I want to save Stefan too. But Elena—and you know I’m only saying this because I’m your best friend and I don’t want you to get hurt—what happens if you find him and... he’s no longer the man you love?”

Elena stops her packing and holds Bonnie’s stare. She feels wild, hysterical tears pressing against her eyes and swallows hard to force them back. _This could break you_ , Bonnie’s stare seems to be saying. _I can’t let that happen, Elena_.

Bonnie is right, and Elena knows she should be more upset at the idea—more freaked out that Stefan, _her_ Stefan, is out there with Klaus—maybe slaughtering people, maybe enjoying it, maybe doing it entirely of his own free will.

She knows all that.

She’s just not sure that she cares. Oh, she knows that she _should_ care. She knows it’s easy to stand here in the quiet of the Salvatore mansion, in the bedroom they share, rifling through their things and not blame him—and that the reality of finding him could make things very, very different. But even then, she’s not sure there’s anything she wouldn’t do to get him back.

“Whatever he’s doing, it’s still Stefan,” she says. “And I want him back, Bonnie. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She doesn’t care if that’s selfish of her—if she should be spending more time worrying about the people he might hurt than how to reach him again. Recently Elena has become very, very good at putting things into boxes and filing them away, and right now, the Stefan box is the only one that matters to her.

Bonnie inclines her head slightly, seeming to accept her words. “Okay,” she says. Then she softens. “I’ll do whatever I can to help, Elena. I promise.”

Elena feels herself crumble in relief. “Thank you,” she whispers, and then Bonnie is hugging her, arms wound tightly around her middle—and Elena is clinging back, partly just from the effort of standing on her feet.

She hears the sounds of someone clearing their throat and looks up over Bonnie’s shoulder to find Damon standing in the doorway, an expression on his face that she can’t quite read. Her heart does a slow, painful turn, and she hurriedly files _that_ away in another box.

Elena pulls away from Bonnie and picks up her suitcase. “How much did you hear?” she says to Damon.

“Enough,” says Damon. He looks like he wants to add more, but then simply says, “We’ll find him, Elena.”

She nods. “I know.”

She moves forward, but he stops her with a forced smile and a, “Let me take that for you.” He picks up the suitcase, leaning in closer than is strictly necessary, but neither of them say anything. He slings the suitcase over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

With one last squeeze of Bonnie’s hand, Elena steals herself and then follows him out of the room.


End file.
